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Soufliou fire, July 2021 Σουφλίου · Soufliou

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2021, 00:17 UTC

The fire started on 9 July 2021 in Soufliou, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 254 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 17th largest in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 28 in Greece in 2021, of 45.

The power measured by the satellite is low (1.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Soufliou · 2020Soufliou · 2022Alexandroupolis · 2020Alexandroupolis · 2023

Burnt area
254ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
9 Jul 2021 – 10 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Jul
2021
Heat detections
5
in a single hotspot: 2 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
6MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jul10 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

10 Jul 2021 · 6 MW · 5

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

32°high
52km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Soufliou Σουφλίου where it started
    254 ha reached on 10 Jul
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Mixed forest41 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland29 %
  • Other natural land20 %
  • Coniferous forest8.9 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub1.2 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
9 Jul 31.8 °C 26 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Jul 31.9 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Jul after 32.4 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Jul after 33.5 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Jul after 35.2 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Jul after 33.8 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Jul after 35.9 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Jul after 35.3 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Jul after 35.2 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Jul after 36.1 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Jul after 33.0 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Jul after 31.6 °C 52 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 2 Jul 2021
After · 17 Jul 2021

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 11 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1034 µg/m³
78910111213
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 5Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Greece ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Soufliou fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 July 2021 and 10 July 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 254 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Soufliou (254 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Greece (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 112 · 199 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112 · 199.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 5 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

Where this data comes from

The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.